Accelerator supported by the JBS Fund for the Amazon selects six innovative businesses in the region
03 | 01 | 2022
The AMAZ Aceleradora de Impacto, which is supported by the JBS Fund for the Amazon, has published the result of the 2021 Call, which chose six innovative businesses to be accelerated and receive investment in 2022. Those selected – BrCarbon, Floresta S.A., Inocas, Mahta, Soul Brasil e Vivalá – operate in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia and Roraima.
The selected initiatives have put forward innovative solutions for the sustainable development of products and services in value chains that are strategic for the conservation of the Amazon, in areas like carbon credits and reforestation, production of oils, Amazon ingredients for food and community-based tourism.
The six businesses will receive an initial investment of R$ 200,000, with the possibility of follow-on investment of R$ 400,000 at the end of the process. This group was chosen from among 156 that registered for the 2021 Call which, to begin with, chose 12 initiatives for a pre-acceleration process. This immersion, along with the diligence undertaken by the AMAZ team to better understand how each one operates and the pitch sessions, influenced the choice.
“The experience with AMAZ shows that the business ecosystem linked to forest conservation has huge potential for growth in the Amazon region. The six that were chosen are high-quality projects with a diverse range of entrepreneurs and are all intended to create tangible environmental and social impact. The JBS Fund for the Amazon has actively participated in this process and is seeking to foster the growth of businesses linked to the forest bioeconomy”, points out Andrea Azevedo, the Fund’s director of Programs and Projects.
The potential impact of the businesses, between five and ten years hence, includes the preservation of over one million hectares of forests, the prevention of annual emissions of 700,000 tons of CO2, the recovery of 3,700 hectares, benefiting hundreds of families and injecting around R$ 30 million into the local communities.
“We were very impressed with the quality of the businesses, the scale of the impact we can achieve, and the potential for actually building a new economy hand in hand with forest conservation in the Amazon”, contends Mariano Cenamo, CEO of AMAZ.
AMAZ is one of the first six projects selected by the JBS Fund for the Amazon, in June of this year, which will receive R$ 50 million in investment. Thus, the entity created by JBS in September 2020 seeks to foster actions for conserving and preserving the Amazon biome, improving the quality of life of the local communities and the scientific and technological development of the region.
Here are the businesses selected by AMAZ
► BrCarbon: A Brazilian climate-tech focused on forest conservation and ecological restoration specializing in carbon projects. Its highly qualified team uses innovative strategies and leading-edge technology to accelerate, multiply and consolidate carbon and forest stewardship projects in Brazil.
► Floresta S.A.: Sets up regenerative scaled-up agroforestry production models, with a portfolio of 10 crops and timber industries. Besides products of the bioeconomy, it offers the financial market opportunities for direct investment in agroforestry in the Amazon, with a target profitability of 17% per annum.
► Inocas: Its purpose is to generate an alternative to both soybean and palm oil by leveraging the macaúba production chain as a source of sustainable vegetable oils. The company’s pilot project is located in the Cerrado biome region at Alto Paranaíba, in the state of Minas Gerais, and by the end of 2021 it will have planted 2,000 hectares of macaúba under a joint agri-forestry-livestock system (trees associated with crop farming and livestock activity) with family farmers. With AMAZ on board, the company will expand its operations to the Legal Amazon region in 2022.
► Mahta: A foodtech operating in the field of food supplements produced from ingredients predominantly originating with communities of the Amazon. It aims to create innovation and value, in addition to reducing negative environmental impacts through production chains in which local communities participate, a model that can be replicated for a systemic change in the food industry. Simultaneously, it will provide consumers with differentiated nutritional value while driving the conservation and regeneration of the Amazon.
► Soul Brasil Cuisine: Its mission is to introduce products with ingredients from Brazil’s biodiversity, especially those from the Amazon, that are sustainable, organic, vegan and free of artificial substances for Brazil and the world. It has been in the market for almost three years, primarily in emporiums and supermarkets in the Rio-São Paulo corridor, as well as exporting to the United States and Europe. The products are certified organic.
► Vivalá: Undertakes expeditions at Brazilian conservation units through community-based tourism. It fosters an innovative approach to the country’s socioenvironmental development, combining experiential expeditions involving communities and nature. It has already engaged with 900 travelers in 10 countries, having injected R$ 627,000 directly into traditional communities for the purchase of community-based services.
The JBS Fund for the Amazon
The JBS Fund for the Amazon is an association dedicated to promoting and financing initiatives and projects whose aim is the sustainable development of the Amazon Biome. The institution is open to contributions and partnerships from associations in the private sector, the third sector and multistakeholder groups. JBS has committed to match the contribution from each donation up to an amount of R$ 500 million. The target is to raise the Fund’s resources to R$ 1 billion by 2030. Any institution or company can submit projects to request financing, provided they have an active corporate taxpayer number (CNPJ) (or equivalent, in the case of international companies). Registrations are now open via the site https://fundojbsamazonia.org/.
Escrito por: Oxigenweb